Tatarstan Justice Minister warns of increase in fraud as criminals impersonate justice of the peace office
At the final meeting of the board of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Tatarstan, Minister Rustem Zagidullin drew attention to the problem of «telephone fraud» and called on citizens to be vigilant.
During his speech, the minister said that according to law enforcement agencies, over 700 thousand IT crimes were registered in Russia in the first 11 months of 2024, with the total material damage exceeding 168 billion rubles. In Tatarstan, about 30,120 similar crimes occurred during the same period, and the amount of stolen funds amounted to 5.2 billion rubles.
One of the new fraudsters' schemes has become calls in which the attackers pose as employees of the office of a justice of the peace. They inform participants in trials about the postponement of a hearing or the readiness of a court decision, but then ask them to provide a code from the received SMS message, allegedly necessary to confirm their identity or receive notification of the time and place of the trial. In fact, this code is used to change the login and password for their personal account on the Unified portal of state services of the Russian Federation (Gosuslugi).
It is important to note that employees can actually contact participants in the process to notify them of a court hearing, the readiness of documents, and other organizational issues, but they never require any codes or other confidential information.
The Minister reminded that the problem of fraud remains relevant, and this year it will also receive special attention.